The Clockwork Scarab by Colleen Gleason

Mina Holmes, niece of the great Sherlock Homes and Evaline Stoker, sister to Bram Stoke, have been contacted by Irene Adler herself under orders of the Princess of Wales.  Girls are disappearing and turning up dead, each with a mysterious metal scarab beside them.  Mina and Evaline will need to work together to figure out who is behind the terrible crimes - no easy task for a vampire hunter and a careful and knee observer!

This was a fun start to the series.  It establishes an arch-nemesis, leaves things hanging, introduces various characters and potential love interests and leaves you wondering how Mina and Evaline's relationship will continue to evolve, if it does at all.

We are in a Steampunk version of London in 1889.  I liked that it was actually explained why London had gone with steam rather than electricity (it was political) which is now outlawed.  Mina is much like her uncle - meticulous, logical, and with a knee sense of observation.  Mina misses nothing and always has a plan.  Evaline is her opposite.  Evaline, carrying on the destiny of her family, is a vampire hunter with supernatural strength.  Evaline doesn't like to wait to figure things out, she'd rather act.

I find Evaline incredibly tiresome.  She was constantly getting them into trouble because she couldn't just wait and listen before she felt the need to do something dramatic or punch someone.  I found Mina much more likable, even though she feels the need to cover emotion with her cool, Holmes logic.

The book was told from both Mina's and Evaline's perspective.  This worked well, as it allowed the reader to get a different perspective on the characters.  Mina thinks herself plain and awkward, but that doesn't seem to come across to other people.  Mina sees Evaline as beautiful and easily gets along with people, but Evaline sees herself as trapped in a world she doesn't belong.

There was a weird time travel aspect that didn't quite seem to fit with the rest of the book, and I'm not sure where it's going to go.  While in the British Museum, Mina discovers Dylan, who seems to have been transported back in time by the power of the statue of Sekhmet.  He helps Mina in the end, but mostly he just mopes about and their were sparks between them.  But it was a bit odd. 

Of course, both girls have potential love interests, although nothing is really for sure by the end of the book.  Evaline was helped multiple times by a mysterious man called Prix, and Mina has a bit of a rivalry going to a young detective named Grayling.  I predict some kind of love triangle between Mina, Grayling and Dylan. 

By the end of the first book, Mina and Evaline have a grudging respect for each other.  They have come to care for each other, but are they friends?  It's unclear.

News

Connecticut's School Librarians seek stakeholder support.  From SLJ.

Beyond blood: what The Hunger Games can teach tweens.  From Time.

Inside stories of memorable books.  From PW.

The Common Core's absurd new reading guidelines.  From New Republic.

When it comes to writing, Matt de la Pena puts teenagers first.  From The Spokesman-Review.

Coming soon: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  Don't recognize that red-haired female elf on the movie poster?  That would be because she's not in the book.  From PW.

75-year-old kid's book by Gertrude Stein.  From NPR.

More Harry Potter stamps revealed! From Today.com.

I disagree with this a lot.  If your child is too young for a book, don't read it to them until they're old enough.  Rather than editing the book to make it conform to your personal beliefs, have a conversation with your child about sections of the book you find troubling, or that don't coincide with your family values.  Child-Proofing Harry Potter.  From The New York Times.

13 young adult movie adaptations to look for.  From GotachaMovies.

After dystopia, what's next?  From The Christian Science Monitor.

SLJ reviews The Book Thief film.

NCAC honors YA author Sherman Alexie as defender of free speech.  From SLJ.

S.E. Hinton in the Twitter age.  From The New Yorker.

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere back in New Mexico's Alamogordo High School.  From SLJ.

Judy Blume's books are getting some trendy new book covers.  From Entertainment Weekly.

AASL: Sessions Day One

Friday began the break-out sessions.  I had a very mixed experience with the sessions.  Some of them were awesome, some of them were interested but applied to specifically to the library the presenter was from, and some of them were not great.

Because I was going to be going to so many sessions on research and inquiry and making yourself essential, I started out the day with a fun one.  I went to a session called Celebrating Diversity: The Brown Bookshelf Salutes Great Books for Kids.  The speakers were authors Gwendolyn Hooks and Kelly Starling-Lyons who also write for The Brown Bookshelf, a blog dedicated to "push[ing] awareness of the myriad of African American voices writing for young readers."  Both Hooks and Starling-Lyons spoke about how they had come to writing.  Starling-Lyons talked about the first time she saw a face that looked like hers on a book.  It was Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.  It had an incredible impact on her.  Her "mission is to transform moments, memories and history into stories of discovery."  Hooks and Starling-Lyons went through a list of recommended titles from picture books to YA that they feel well represents African American authors.  They had some of the books and had a little contest at the end to give some of them away.

The next session I attended was The Vision of Outstanding School Library Programs, being presented by Nancy Everhart.  The room it was being held in wasn't all that big, and it was completely packed, which people sitting on every spare piece of floor and huddled around the door.  You'd think they'd expect something called "The Vision of Outstanding School Library Programs" to be popular!  Everhart, who in 2010-2011 was AASL president conducted a tour of 38 school libraries across the country to find out what made an outstanding school library program.  It was interesting to hear the story of her travels, and the experiences she had, but I wanted something more concrete.  Even after reading her full article (in the most recent issue of Teacher Librarian), I still don't feel like I really know what makes and outstanding school library program.  Everhart used the AASL school library program rubric to asses each library, and the top libraries did have many things in common, like leadership, flexible learning spaces, support inquiry, a comprehensive emission.  But I wanted even MORE than that!  How do the libraries with little funding support reading when they don't have money to buy new materials?  How did they go about making connections with other teachers and administrators?  I wanted the nitty gritty, but it wasn't there.

AASL Opening Session

At the end of last week and part of last weekend I attended the 2013 American Association of School Librarians (AASL) conference.  This was the first time I'd ever been to AASL.  Like ALA, it moves location each year, and since this time it was conveniently located in Hartford, Connecticut, and since my library would pay for my registration, there was no reason not to go!  I enjoyed being at a conference where all the sessions focused specifically on school libraries, and to be able to meet and talk to so many other school librarians.

The open was Thursday evening, and after lots of announcements we were greeted by the mayor of Hartford, who told us all how much he valued school librarians and how important we were.  It was kind of hard to take him seriously, however, considering how few schools in Connecticut have school librarians at all.

The opening speaker was Tony Wagner.  Tony Wagner had spoken at my school last year, and I was unimpressed.  He has lots of large ideas and few concrete ways on how to execute those ideas, so I wasn't super excited.  Tony Wagner proceeded to give the exact same speech he'd given at my school.  The exact.  Same.  Speech.  No changes.  Nothing specifically that applied to librarians, you know, the people he was talking to.  He gave his same canned speech, all about the importance of critical thinking and how curriculum is all about test prep and shouldn't be.  And I don't disagree with those things.  Not at all.  Lots of cheering and clapping for what Wagner was saying.  But we're not administrators.  We don't get to decided if the schools we work on take tests or not.  We don't get too say what classroom teachers focus on.  There were lots of places where he could have made specific library connections, but he didn't.  That would have involved rewriting his speech.  So yeah.  That was a disappointment.

So, well played Tony Wagner.  You're traveling the country making tons of money and using the same speech over and over and everyone things you're the voice of the future.  Well play indeed.

That evening I went to an independent school library mixer.  There are so many people at these conferences it's sometimes hard to make connections.  At a mixer such as this it's much smaller and easier to talk to people.  All the librarians in their 20s and 30s managed to find each other, and then we talked about things like how much we loved The Baby-Sitter's Club books.

Waiting on Wednesday: Uninvited by Sophie Jordan

"Waiting On Wednesday" is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine to spotlight an upcoming release that we're excited about. This week I'm waiting on Uninvited by Sophie Jordan.

The Scarlet Letter meets Minority Report in bestselling author Sophie Jordan's chilling new novel about a teenage girl who is ostracized when her genetic test proves she's destined to become a murderer.

When Davy Hamilton's tests come back positive for Homicidal Tendency Syndrome (HTS)-aka the kill gene-she loses everything. Her boyfriend ditches her, her parents are scared of her, and she can forget about her bright future at Juilliard. Davy doesn't feel any different, but genes don't lie. One day she will kill someone.

Only Sean, a fellow HTS carrier, can relate to her new life. Davy wants to trust him; maybe he's not as dangerous as he seems. Or maybe Davy is just as deadly.

The first in a two-book series, Uninvited tackles intriguing questions about free will, identity, and human nature. Steeped in New York Times bestselling author Sophie Jordan's trademark mix of gripping action and breathless romance, this suspenseful tale is perfect for fans of James Patterson, Michelle Hodkin, and Lisa McMann.

Uninvited comes out January 28, 2013.

News

The song "The Fox" (you know, "What does the fox say?") is going to be a book.  I can't image it's going to be a good one for read-alouds.  From Los Angeles Times.

SLJ reviews How I Live Now and Ender's Game.

Terry Pratchett revisits The Carpet People.  From NPR.

Did you know the story of 12 Years a Slave had already been told as a picture book?  From National Geographic.

Alexander for Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Day has been found.  From Deadline.

SLJ diversity roundup.

Why romance is beside the point in The Hunger Games.  From Hollywood.com.

First look at Harry Potter stamps!  From examiner.com.

YALSA badges aim to quantify youth librarians' competencies.  From SLJ.

YALSA's 2013 Teen's Top Ten.

Take a look at the Divergent movie poster.  Our female character, the main character in the book, gets to face away from us so we can see both her boob and her ass.  The male supporting character faces us.  Nice choice, Red Wagon Entertainment.

Waiting on Wednesday: The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson.

"Waiting On Wednesday" is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine to spotlight an upcoming release that we're excited about. This week I'm waiting on The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson.

For the past five years, Hayley Kincaid and her father, Andy, have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Now they are back in the town where he grew up so Hayley can attend school. Perhaps, for the first time, Hayley can have a normal life, put aside her own painful memories, even have a relationship with Finn, the hot guy who obviously likes her but is hiding secrets of his own.

Will being back home help Andy’s PTSD, or will his terrible memories drag him to the edge of hell, and drugs push him over? The Impossible Knife of Memory is Laurie Halse Anderson at her finest: compelling, surprising, and impossible to put down.

The Impossible Knife of Memory comes out January 7, 2014.